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Technically, the role of the Caeliar is not that of a DEM; their role has been established and foreshadowed throughout the trilogy. A DEM is a force that, without prior establishment or involvement in the narrative, appears at the end to resolve the story. The Caeliar's participation in the story is directly impelled by the actions of Erika Hernandez as well as Picard, Riker, and Dax.

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~ David Mack | "Where were you when the page was blank?" — Truman Capote

Uh, Riker was right in "The Last Outpost" regarding the Ferengi as idiots. Don't romanticize diversity. Their whole society is based on swindling those they couldn't steal from or conquer or oppress or, well, eat - remember, the Ferengi weren't supposed to be comical at first. Just because they managed to develop warp doesn't make them equals any more than Nazi Germany was just as valid at mid-century America. If you're saying that it's just their way to be...basically assholes, and they can't change being that way, I find that a perverse interpretation of cultural diversity. Is there something special about us humans that we can let go of slavery and treating women like property that other beings simply can't come to?

It's the "It's easy to be perfect in a world of Replicators and Holodecks" as that's the Bread and Circuses of the 24th century.

How would replicators and holodecks by themselves make it easy to be perfect? Couldn't replicators make it more difficult to understand the worth of things, and holodecks make it easier to become unsocial and alienated? Wealth and leisure alone do not make one a moral a person.

Sci wrote:

…by what right would someone pass judgment on all of German culture based on the Nazis? … What about understanding that the Nazi era is one historical era in German history, not the defining historical era?

Exactly why Riker argued for their survival against the Tkon who was ready to kill them.

Plus Riker was telling the Tkon to spare the lives of the three Ferengi that actually were "Nazis."

Sci wrote:

...Not because their lives have intrinsic value -- no. They should live so that we can spread Federation values to them. Disgusting.

This may be off-topic but what exactly do you believe are Federation values are that shouldn't be spread?

Riker was arguing that they be permitted to live in the hopes that they'd naturally evolve (you suggested the Federation teach them anything) to something other than what they'd showed themselves as: thieves and killers. In fact Riker says though the Ferengi [Alliance] may one day destroy [the Federation], that's a chance his people are willing to take in the hope that the Ferengi will change their ways. That's a pretty damn admirable, if a little too idealistic.

Sci wrote:

What I am saying is that a half-hour with a few guys is not enough time to get an adequate -- or even honest -- sense of what an entire culture is like, and that even if you object to some of their philosophical values, you shouldn't act like they themselves as unique individuals are necessarily inferior or that their lives only have value insofar as you can convert them to your beliefs.

It's episodic television. Riker cut to the chase. He wasn't wrong about them. That they were farcically simplistic and loathsome wasn't the issue; that was the conceit that set up the moral dilemma actually being discussed - what to do about such a people.

Regarding the "intrinsic value of all life," here's a brain teaser, if the Ferengi were incapable of being anything but thieves and killers (if they were like the xenomorphs from Alien…alive but anti-life) should the Tkon have permitted them to be a perpetual threat or should he have eliminated the threat? As Hicks said queasily comically, "nuke them from orbit"?

Finally, Phipps, if the remaining survivor of a race is a mass murderer, I say it is genocide and wrong to kill them in the 24th century. Given their level of psychiatric and genetic-engineering/cloning tech, I'm sure both the murderer and their race could be saved. Not that most people would want to.

How would replicators and holodecks by themselves make it easy to be perfect? Couldn't replicators make it more difficult to understand the worth of things, and holodecks make it easier to become unsocial and alienated? Wealth and leisure alone do not make one a moral a person.

It's more the issue that I am a believer that "civilization is needed to be civilized." It's not that people are necessarily more primitive but it becomes easier to be compassionate and peaceful when there's less concern about day-to-day survival. I don't see this as a flaw, merely a state of reality that absence and struggling to survive makes it hard to care about things other than survival.

Finally, Phipps, if the remaining survivor of a race is a mass murderer, I say it is genocide and wrong to kill them in the 24th century. Given their level of psychiatric and genetic-engineering/cloning tech, I'm sure both the murderer and their race could be saved. Not that most people would want to.

I'm not a believer in the death penalty nor do I approve of WMDs. However, I enjoy postulating questions that put us in tough places. In the case of our hypothetical, "last surviving member of a race is a scumbag" I actually do believe there's a point that the loss of something unique in the universe is something to be avoided (so says Data in MOAM).

My point was more a "devil is in the details" sort of question. Genocide is the most horrific crime in the history of the world but operating from the assumption that every single Founder is a consenting adult in a campaign of mass murder and conquest--makes the thing more questionable than I thought DS9 was meant to do. I'm actually rather glad to find out I was wrong since I always felt that was troubling.

As I mentioned in my review of the book, I want Star Trek to always come down on the side of peace-making.